


The Physics of Grammatical Tenses

by orphan_account



Series: once upon a time i liked black, but now all i see is gold, blood and the dead [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: ? But also not really?, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, At least I try to sound like I have a modicum of intelligence, BAMF Maria Hill, Character Study, Except Maria's wonderful at hiding it and pretending she's solved all her problems, Fluff, Gen, I like blackhill but realistically we have a very small chance of it happening so sorry lads, I present to you this long-overdue Maria Hill fic, Introspection, Maria Hill & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Maria Hill Feels, Maria Hill is a Good Bro, Maria Hill is not cuddly but she's not overly tsundere-like too, Maria Hill-centric, Not really? But somewhat?, Other, POV Maria Hill, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychology, Slice of Life, With my minimum knowledge of intelligence communities, also is it just me or is the new google icon for pc really off-setting, but who knows? maybe she has, somewhat i suppose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:47:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27721646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Retrospection, Observation and Introspection with Maria Hill, Deputy Director of SHIELD, ex-Marine, human behaviour calculator, hardass hill and eye candyTitle inspired by paxlux's "The Physics of Present Tense", except who really lives fully in the present and not the past or future, really?
Relationships: Maria Hill & Avengers Team, Maria Hill & Natasha Romanov, Natasha Romanov & Avengers Team, Nick Fury & Maria Hill & Natasha Romanov, Phil Coulson & Nick Fury & Maria Hill
Series: once upon a time i liked black, but now all i see is gold, blood and the dead [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1953565
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8





	The Physics of Grammatical Tenses

Maria is ice. Cold hearted bitch, yes. Scarily competent for a normal human being, yes. Smarter than the average human, yes.

Maria's baby is shield. Not your average human's child, but Maria has been anything but normal.

Freakish, miracle. Stole her mother's life even before her first breaths were taken.

Maria was born on a cold night when temperatures hit -44 degrees Fahrenheit in Chicago, Illinois.

Maybe she was meant to be cold and terrifying after all.

Maria was born, and covered in her mother's blood, right next to her cooling corpse that night.

Edward Hill never forgave her for it. Her first enemy, before she was even a day old, was made just like that.

She would go on to make many more in the future.

Edward had mastered a perfect mix of neglect, pity and violence over the years. Maria had once stepped back to admire his skill, the skill that showed his previous disposition to intelligence before his wife had died and he had become a drunkard and a smoker.

Maria was practically raised by herself, and the help of a homeless network. Maria had access to school and the libraries. In return for knowledge and teaching the homeless children, she had a safer place to camp and food.

Maria had always been smart. One did not pick up spy satellite programs within a month or so in 7th grade using a public computer and exploitation of free online courses without having some decent level of intelligence.

School was boring for her, although she did try to do well in her examinations. Her priority was to earn credentials, earn scholarships, and get her own life, preferably far, far away from this place.

That's all school has ever been. A place with resources, no matter how boring they were, resources all the same.

Maria joined the marines. Marine life was not easy. She had to find her balance between money, morals, sexism and her own emotions.

Maria, like it or not, was an abused child. Psychologically, mainly, but physically too, on Edward's wife's death day. On her birthday, which she had learnt to view as just another day.

Maria is not emotional. She is rational, she is icy winters. She is logical, she is detached. She is uncompromised and capable of seeing the world from different angles and perspectives.

Her talent is in nitpicking people's emotions and backstories. She was not much of a violence person on a large scale. She fixed things, she saw flaws and corrected them. She is a diplomat, not a brute. Her skill set lay in being capable of re-inventing someone's entire world view. She could destroy a person's opinions and unroot someone's morals with just her words. She could twist her words and make someone see the flaws in themselves, in their lives, make them want to change them, even.

In other words, she was the one **_in control_**.

As one of the five females in the entire recruit platoon, she really wasn't admired.

She rose up the ranks. Easy enough, work hard, be smart, don't die. Sue her, she joined the army for less than noble reasons.

Sometimes, when she's sitting in mandatory therapy Coulson and Fury forced her to go to, when she's yelling at baby agents, she thinks that the child in her died along with its mother.

She wasn't particularly dominating. Neither was she your typical, hero-esque, captain and leader, leading the great America into freedom and justice and all that Captain America jazz. She wasn't as outstanding as the one guy who could sniff out bombs like he had a sixth sense.

She was perfectly ordinary, she was made up of intricate layers like every other living being. She isn't that special, and she knows. 

She became a Special Forces Marine through sheer stubbornness and a will to survive. The pay check was also quite neat.

She lived. She saw things no one should ever see.

And when her entire squad was blown up, when she got about 20 bones crushed, a concussion, and a bullet through the chest, grazing her fucking heart when she finally woke up to white, white, white, she met Director Fury of shield.

Turns out secret service is now globalised. For some reason, she was being recruited.

Maybe it was the drugs. Maybe it was the concussion, but the moment she set her eyes on Fury, before Fury even spoke, she went, "If you're bringing me into a different division and I have to dress like I'm part of a mafia gang slash pirate, then no thank you Sir."

The man she would come to know as Phil Coulson laughed. Fury was not amused.

He said, and Maria quotes, "Young lady, we are not a mafia gang. Neither are we pirates. We've been tracking you and your smartass mouth. Talked to a guy called Jen. Said you could convince a shopkeeper to let him run the store for a month with no supervision. Also said the shopkeeper left Illinois in a daze and a sudden will to go live his gambling dreams in Las Vegas. I wondered, how did you do it? Jen said you did it a couple more times, amassed favors within the homeless community too. And without any threatening or bribing, just with your words."

"So Mr Roberts did go to Las Vegas, I thought he wanted to go to Brazil. Interesting, how is he?" Maria lifts an eyebrow.

Fury's facial muscles twitch as Coulson holds in more laughter.

"When were you born?"

"I was born on April 4th, 1982, it says so on the records. Why are you asking me this, why are you recruiting me, what are you recruiting me for, and most importantly, what will happen if I refuse?"

"She's asking the right questions," Coulson notes.

"I am Director Fury of Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division. We would like to recruit you for your talents."

Maria nods slowly.

"You dug into records for me, I see. And your way too long name, someone really wanted it to spell out shield. I'm willing to bet you were both born and raised American. You have a control thing, from the immaculate image you present to someone still unable to serve in active duty. Person of color, probably not an easy life. Military experience too. You want my help, but you aren't going to beg for it, can admire that. Eye patch is well taken care of, but not new. Sentimental, probably one of your only weaknesses. You take a smoke sometimes too, but you probably try not to, cancer and all that fun stuff. You don't particularly stick to rules, but you bend them. Your lackey, loyal, probably joined the field out of compassion, senior agent too, handler is my best bet. Maybe analyst, but the body suggests otherwise. Probably had a normal, lovely childhood but wanted to change the world. White through and through. Shield, which famous person involved in military used shields, they're archaic. Oh yes, 20th century, World War I. Steven Grant Rogers. Of course, a tribute to him. Who though? Who would be close enough and have the resources? Someone high up military, or government, or involved. So, conclusion, Howling Commandoes, Agent Margaret Carter, Howard Stark, Maria Stark, Senators. Has to understand military and intelligence inner workings, so Senators out. Personal experience, can lead, can organise. Howling Commandoes out, Maria Stark out. Must have resources and contacts. Stark Industries, leading manufacturer in weapons. Howard Stark would have helped, but I doubt he's the type to create an entire organisation in honour of Captain America, even if they were close. So, Agent Margaret Carter, who still keeps pictures of Captain America, has mentioned him repeatedly in interviews. Am I wrong? Do I need to do a further job interview?"

A nearby nurse gapes at her.

"I don't know if I should feel insulted or sorry for the poor sods who get in her way. I'm Agent Coulson, pleasure to meet you Miss Hill. Did you break the nurse?" Coulson shakes her hand as they both glance at the nurse, Miss Meyers.

"We'll draw up the contract at a further date. Any other burning questions?" Fury says instead.

Maria thinks carefully.

"Just two, how much is the pay check, and where is your base?"

Fury's answering smirk, which Maria has later learnt meant Nick has got some dumb idea or another mess for her to clean, makes Maria slightly uneasy. Slightly.

Wow, turns out she was recruited to hunt down a notorious assassin that has been somehow been around since 1930s. Wonderful.

She literally went through one month of training before Fury got impatient and pulled her into the field and promoted her to level 4 clearance. Thanks for the support, Director.

Maria started in Ops. Even Fury can't pull rank and immediately get her into the team hunting down Black Widow.

She proved to be a worthy asset when she stopped a coup and a terrorist attack just by talking to the main instigators. They really just needed a therapist, honestly. One had a traumatic childhood and lived in a war, the other was plain cracked and just wanted some fun.

WSC reluctantly let Fury promote her again after two months.

The entirety of shield besides Coulson thought he was going senile faster than they had expected.

Maria did too, but hey, a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.

She'd be stupid to not accept.

So she's on Level 7 now, finally a senior agent and authorised to do the job she was recruited for.

Apparently, this Russian killer begun to come out of the shadows lately. The alias Black Widow has popped up over the years, but it was just a legend.

Red Room, secret facility in Russia, begun in Siberia and Moscow before expanding.

Somehow it was always the Russians, why? To hell if Maria knew, she was just doing her job.

Reports of a red hourglass, sometimes a drawing in blood, sometimes an arrangement of newspaper clippings, sometimes a burner phone with a message.

Either arrogant, suicidal, or attention seeker then.

Forensics team could find no trace of the assassin. World governments in panic with secrets being exposed. Terrorist rings stirring up, drug dens being brought to light.

Maria started to work with Coulson's team, STRIKE Team Delta. Especially the one and only carnie, Clint Barton.

"Seems like she's trying to do some Samaritan work in her own way, or maybe revealing how great Russia is and how we should all be bowing down to their greatness," Barton once said.

Maria had thrown a pen at him. Barton had laughed and told her to get another cup of coffee.

She spent days obsessively pouring over reports, newspaper articles, clippings, forensic tests, political analytics and more.

Days turned to weeks, weeks to months. Before she knew it, it had been 3 months since she first started to pursue this case.

"Is it fucking Widow?" Maria had groaned as a lower level agent had barged into her office.

"Yes Ma'am," the agent had squeaked out.

"It's fucking Widow again Barton, get your ass here," Maria had sighed, calling Barton.

"Maybe we should find out her birthday and send her one of those traditional mourning dresses, since she's a Widow and all," Barton snickers before catching Maria's glare and wisely shuts up.

"She's had decades of experience, she's definitely a professional," Matthews, another STRIKE Team Delta member, says.

"Decades of experience," Maria murmurs, reaching out for her files.

"Hill?" Coulson asks.

"Decades. We've only got 2 possible theories. First, Black Widow was a mantle passed down from generation to generation, which would mean there are more Widows out there, or retired ones, but I doubt Red Room would allow retirement. Or, Red Room somehow found a way to make their Widow immortal, or preserved. In her prime, a perfect murder weapon. Red Room had contact with Erskine and Zola at different points in time. Their known facilities are in Moscow, Novgorod, Volgograd, previously Stalingrad and Yekaterinburg. Formed during times where only Russians could be trusted, in times of a civil war and world war. So probably Russian through and through. Trained in other mannerisms and cultures, perhaps computer science too, as society is becoming digitalised. So far three facilities have suddenly been burned to the ground. Denotes revenge, vengeance. A symbol, definitely an insider job, someone who had access to the locations and security."

"You think we have a rogue Widow?"

"She has no pattern to her new missions, she's stopped killing too, I've noticed. Statistically, she uses blond hair the most often, extensions, dye, or wigs. We never manage to capture her facial features. We always try to catch her during the act, but what if we tried catching her right after the act, before the next?"

"That, could actually work," Coulson slowly says.

"The things she left behind so far. Four images drawn in blood, two hourglass reconstructions using newspaper articles torn up, related to her, her mission or Red Room. One postcard of where she was going next, confirmed by the next report of her. Three hard drives containing intel. One burner phone, with a message saying "Salut Madame". Madame, maybe her handler or trainer. And a head of another known assassin, specializing in little girls and boys, if you catch my drift. One thing is for certain. She's freelancing now. She's trying to survive. She's trying to do some good. Not what one would expect for a trained Russian assassin who's deeds are resurfacing or have association to, is it?"

"So the question is what is she doing next?" Coulson asks.

"No, it's why she's doing this, and what she is willing to do," Maria replies.

Turns out Widow is willing to do anything.

Shield sends its best psychiatrists in to deprogram her.

It doesn't work. She's still the mess of an assassin Red Room wanted her to be, mission first human second.

At least no one dies, but Maria does wince slightly when she sees a psychologist nearly die with a well placed ball point pen at the carotid artery.

Fury doesn’t want to send her in. She's too valuable to be killed, he says.

Maria wants to nitpick her. She wants to see what's going on in that pretty head of hers. What caused her major guilt complex? (There's no way she turned herself over unless it's for revenge or from guilt) How did she survive the brutal training? Has it changed her, is she any different form them all? Did humans have the capacity to lose themselves and still come back fully? Was her soul in shatters from killing? If she had done it with dubious consent, did it count? Was it just a drive for survival, or did she truly want to drown herself in others' blood?

Sometimes, Maria really wishes she were some higher deity, if not to poke and prod around at people and categorise them efficiently without having to care about ethics or morality. (Like lab rats and scientists. Like vegans, the ones who abstained due to their desire of not killing animals, who ate vegetables without remorse but balked at the idea of killing animals for consumption.)

Oh god she sounds demented. She needs a break from paperwork, clearly it's affecting her.

There's something about Widow that draws people in. Most are in for her body. Maria wants to see her mind. Good field agents aren't just physically capable, they've got to be intellectually unchallenged too.

Widow's brain works on genius levels. Her IQ's around 140-150 range, she's trained in dozens of languages, computer science, forensic science, psychology, diplomacy. She was born for action, she was made to use her talents. Even if the Red Room didn't come and screw her up, she would have been inevitably drawn to the field.

And she was a Princess too, apparently.

So when Fury finally makes the call to give her thirty minutes with Widow (unwillingly), when Coulson's finally tired of her bitching about Fury ("I was dragged out of the Marines to bring her in, Phil! Nick could at least have the decency to let me see her and talk to her!"), she doesn't complain.

Maria gives her guards and agents explicit orders to not intervene unless she was in definite danger of dying.

The reinforced doors slide open and Maria sees Widow hanging upside down off her small bed in the corner, handcuffed to the bed posts.

Widow assesses her in a flash, as does Maria.

"I'm Deputy Director of shield. Do sit properly, I don't want to talk to an upside down face," Maria calmly says, sliding onto a chair.

Widow tilts her head, blond curls with hints of red at the roots bouncing.

"I can't read you," Widow admits.

"You shouldn't be able to, that's how I know I'm doing my job. Now, would you like to tell me what's wrong with all the other psychologists and psychiatrists the Director sends in?"

"They're boring. Michaels wants to fuck me even in my sorry state. Kelsey is having an affair. Williamson should retire. The list goes on and on."

"I'm sorry to hear about your oh so terrible life. I can't imagine it, sitting in here, 3 meals a day with a tv for entertainment, getting visitors. How miserable," Maria deadpans.

Widow's lips curl into a smile.

"I like you. Can I keep her?" Widow asks, waving at the hidden, or not so hidden, cameras.

"Why did you choose to join shield? Why not FBI, why not CIA? You could definitely ditch your entire Widow career and become a new person."

"Shield made the best offer," Widow shrugs.

"Keeping you here like a pet cat and letting you on missions when we want you to, that's your opinion of the best offer?" Maria raises an eyebrow.

"It's not bad, the pay check is great. I get paid, get fed, all I have to do is to help them out. Quid pro quo?"

"Birthday?"

"22 November 1984."

"Another person younger than Barton but still much more mature."

"He's quite the pet bird, isn't he?"

"You can't play with the resident canary until you are cleared for psych evaluations, which you definitely are not doing right now." Maria can practically feel Barton's glare and yell of protest.

Widow smiles and leans against the wall.

"Why is shield sending in their deputy to do grunt work? Am I so fascinating?"

"You're an internationally renowned assassin, lived through a KGB wannabe organisation slash orphanage recruitment centre for troubled girls, Romanova. And I am but a lowly servant for the world and the esteemed Director's paperwork. Try again, why did you choose shield?"

"It best served my interests."

Maria squints at her.

"I was granted 30 minutes with you, but that'll be all for today. I'll try to corral Fury a bit more, make your dull life more interesting. And by the way, don't pretend to not know the handcuffs are for your own comfort and not shield's."

Widow's carefully neutral face shows a small flash of embarrassment or panic before it shutters off and she glares like an obstinate child.

Maria elegantly moves towards the doors, turning around to grin at her wolfishly.

"I can still see you Romanova!" Maria yells as Widow flips her off childishly.

"What was that Hill?" Fury barks as she steps out of the holding cell.

"Establishing a base rapport with Widow? Like all your dumbass psychiatrists and therapists forgot to do? Psycho-evaluating her comforts and dislikes to figure out how to talk to her?" Maria swiftly replies.

Fury sighs.

"One week. If there's no improvement, you aren't seeing her ever again."

"You make it sound like you're an overprotective father in a terrible rom-com," Maria snarks.

Coulson's laughs reverberate as low level agents nearby suddenly find the perfect metal flooring interesting and Fury visibly restrains himself while Maria strides to her office to finish more paperwork, or the bane of her existence.

"Do you have any hobbies?" Maria asks.

Widow stares at her incredulously.

"Never went sight-seeing on your missions? I would have, capitalism and all that. Oh wait, Russia's communist. Right."

"I used to play chess."

"Not your ideal type of hobby?"

"Each game you lose, they break a finger. Chess is Russia's game, and if you can't win there, you can't serve Russia."

"How many times did you lose?"

Widow smirks.

"Once. I never lost again after that."

"When was your first kill?"

"When I was 9, we begun the first stages of initiation. Win, or be put down. I had one of my classmates, another girl, in a headlock. Madame said kill. I did. It was efficient. I watched the life in her eyes disappear. Are you afraid, моя дорогой?" Widow purrs.

"What did you feel then?"

"Nothing. Nothing at all."

"Hmm," was the only response Maria gave, making the Widow visibly frustrated, yet interested at her nonchalance.

"Did you ever enjoy it? The missions, the training?"

"I don't know. It was my routine, it was necessary. I'm just an assassin, a weapon after all."

"Ah, the crux of our problem. Are you still a weapon, or are you something more?" Maria leans in towards Widow, who had taken to sitting opposite her like an actual civilised person.

Widow's breathing is steady, even when she can feel Maria's breaths on her face.

"I have no place in the world," Widow replies evenly.

Maria smiles and settles back.

"That's where shield comes in."

"Do you dance?" Maria abruptly asks once.

"Not anymore."

"Why? I heard Red Room made all their students learn ballet, ballroom dancing, tango and the likes."

"Too many bad memories, I suppose. Or maybe I just grew out of it, never really enjoyed it anyways."

"When I was a kid I always wanted to learn ballet."

"Did you?"

"Once. Found that I wasn't flexible enough to continue to higher levels. I dreamt of visiting the Bolshoi once."

"You could go, you've probably got enough funds for that now."

Maria cocks her head.

"We're not children anymore, clinging on to fantastical notions of Prince Charmings and idealistic dreams of becoming a ballerina, are we, Natalia?"

"I was never a child," Widow admits softly.

Maria would never admit it, not even in the future when Barton bribed her with offers of doing her paperwork or plying her with drinks, but she brought a book of children's stories to Widow the next time she visited, not the crappy, propaganda ones Red Room fed the students.

Maria pretended to not hear Widow's breath hitch.

"Do you dream?"

"Sometimes. My life, it's in flashes. Pieces. I don't understand most of it. There's no chronological order. I saw the Pavlov House crumbling. I witnessed the assassination of JFK. I remember some big fancy gala. I remember collecting small things like buttons or hair clips. It's quite frankly, all a mess."

"You witnessed the assassination of JFK?"

"Yes, but I can't remember much. I doubt Red Room was involved though. They were sort of in an uproar about it. Something was said about him being a needed pawn."

Maria laughs.

"You're far more interesting than I ever expected, Princess."

"I could gain my inheritance and hire you as my personal bodyguard and overthrow the Russian government."

"Now that would be a waste of our talents, but good to know there's a backup plan."

Widow shrugs.

"I entertain all possibilities, and this is one of them."

"Shield isn't your personal playground, Romanova," Maria lightly says, although what she meant was anything but that.

"It's Fury's, by default yours, and by default mine," Widow grins, razor sharp, and Maria remembers the wolf in the woman in front of her.

Maria's slightly impressed with how much they wore each other's guards down.

Maria thinks she'll miss having such a puzzle like Natalia Alianovna.

She's cleared for field work after months of therapy and probation.

When Fury gruffly announces this, Maria gives him a teasing glance.

Fury rolls his eye, which means he's not amused but can see the humour in the situation.

Maria passes her on to Coulson, because God help her if she has to work with Widow and Barton, the amount of paperwork would be a disaster.

Maria doesn't see Natalia anymore, only through ink and paper on reports.

It's boring once again. Routine, life goes on. Natalia and Maria had collided like stars. They had stolen from each other, time, resources, facts. And one day, one of them would explode like a supernova.

According to probability and statistics, it was more likely to be Natalia.

Maria hoped her debut of her first big job would go well. Maria wouldn't wish to see all her hard work wasted.

Fury introduces her to aliens.

Aliens, as in plural.

Overall, Maria thinks she did quite well in maintaining her composure, and reigning in the urge to deck Nick Fury because he said nothing except "come in formal attire, you're meeting someone new".

It's 2008, and she's meeting with aliens.

Edward Hill would never have believed this.

She builds rapport with the aliens, she learnt were called Skrulls. She learnt their history, their culture. Their laws, their way of life, their internal politics and way of thinking.

It was like sliding into another skin, just like how the Skrulls morphed theirs.

Maybe that's why the Skrulls seemed to like her much more than other humans.

Human or not, living beings always sought kinship with those that felt familiar to them.

The Skrulls were no different.

(Maybe Maria became messed up during her birth, maybe she was meant to die after all and this was the cost of surviving)

In a span of weeks, the world is thrown into chaos. A demigod. An old war figure come back to life. A billionaire slash hero. And the Skrulls warning them about extra activity on some moon or some space hole thing. (Maria never really liked astronomy nor physics anyways)

In the times of gods and monsters, what was the worth of a man? She had asked Fury.

Maybe she was seeking answers. Maybe she was curious. Maybe she wanted to see what Fury thought about all of this. Maybe she was just feeling particularly poetic.

Fury had given her an inscrutable look, pressed another glock in her hand (a very pretty one), and told her to go to her duties. Which was enough of an answer, she supposed.

The gun had felt heavier than usual.

(Maria had deconstructed it later, in the privacy of her rooms. She was right, there were hard drives containing files and files of intel and hidden or scrapped projects that would never see the light unless a particularly talented hacker decided to dig very deep.)

(Maria had read all of it, memorised it, and burned the thing. Information needed to be in safe hands, and what safer place than a neutral party's mind?)

Maria had authorised the decision to bring in two agents into the Avengers Initiative. Fury wanted two more at first, but Maria had argued. Fury caved in in the end.

Over the course of three days, Maria had carefully reviewed profiles and decided which ones to send to Fury for confirmation. Fury had picked Romanova (or Romanoff now, said she decided the other agents would be more comfortable with a bastardised version of her name, as if she were anything but the wolf she is) and Barton.

Fury had complained to Maria once, about her decision to only have two people. "I would have put you and Carter on the team, with Phil as handler. Would have been a good team, balancing out the ones with hero complexes or crazy traumatic backstories and the more logical, trained ones."

Her response had been "With all due respect Sir, I think everyone of us either has a legacy, daddy issues, needs therapy or crazy traumatic past trademark."

Before Maria knows it, her life became more vibrant. More interesting. Suddenly its not so dull, it’s a kaleidoscope of colours and a whirlwind of plans and fate.

Until Phil Coulson is KIA.

Her world stops. She stops burning, faltering for a second.

The ever constant presence in shield. The only other person to see her high on drugs (even the medical staff has never seen her like during her recruitment before, Maria's got a strong sense of control over her body) besides Fury.

(Maria thinks its pretty ironic when Fury "dies" just two years later)

(The people she takes a fondness to always end up dead. It's just how it always was.)

The other agents connected to the comms had also faltered. They all look at her. And suddenly there's so many pairs of eyes on her, waiting for her command.

(To the 5 year old with scrapped knees and neatly plaited hair. To the 9 year old with a short ponytail and determined scowl. To the 15 year old with enough knowledge to pass a SAT test. To the 19 year old as she rains down hell on enemy troops)

"Close the portal," Maria yells instead.

Later, as she notices with clinical detachment, she's been de-personalising and dissociating the entire time. She's been feeling like her mind is drifting off, like she isn't herself anymore. She notices that she's not trembling, but she's got a massive migrane building and a lack of awareness, like she's in third person POV and not first.

She goes through her post op routine. Long shower, putting on stupid cosmetics and creams Carter, May and Romanoff send her occasionally, cleaning her guns and re-assembling them, changing bed sheets, turning off all the lights and burying herself under blankets and comfy hoodies.

(Grounding, therapists called it. Battle could be traumatic, and PTSD could be developed easily on the field. Most humans were not made for war, for the utter annihilation and death.)

It's 22 hours after Phil's death, after clean ups and de-briefing and staying awake on caffeine for 37 hours before she lets herself break down and sob into her pillow.

It's the first time in 20 years Maria Hill lets herself cry.

When Maria was 8 she begun to read comics. Cheap ones, with superheroes and cliché villains and all that crap. But she still reads them, despite being able to guess most of the plot twists and endings (the homeless kids never read comics with her because of her tendency for spoilers).

When Maria was 10 she begun to watch movies. She would hide in between the backyards of houses of rich neighborhoods and watch tv through a window. She remembers watching an action movie, where the group of superheroes face down death with Oscar-worthy smiles and confidence. Where they fight with unnatural grace and experience against aliens involved in some sort of revenge plot and government experimentation. She hears the family discussing their favourites, most like the half-robot while others like the invincible alien-man.

Maria herself like the warrior princess. She thinks she's very inspiring, and to be the only female on the team, being the only voice of reason (exhibit a, their fighting/emotional dump while the aliens were still attacking), Maria thinks she's the most sensible one.

There's sequels after that. Maria always manages to catch the sequels, as the family bought the entire series' CDs.

Maria spends her carefully saved money from odd jobs on small things like keychains of the warrior princess and once, a poster. Maria knows she's probably too old for it, but she makes up a warrior princess in her head and talks to her, sometimes even acts like her.

When the warrior princess sacrifices herself in the last movie, blocking the spear hurtling towards her heavily wounded teammate but instead getting caught by the arm and tossed into the portal of aliens, getting sucked into the abyss of aliens, Maria learns an important lesson of not forming attachments.

Maria's 12, and she vows to never cry from sadness ever again.

(A teacher once asked her when she was 13, barely recovering from the impact the death of the warrior princess has on her, her idol who she felt a bit silly relating to, "when was the last time you cried from sadness?". Maria thinks it's a trick question, of course. The warrior princess would never have fallen for such traps. Maria pretends to think. "I don't think I've ever done that before," she replies instead.)

(In another talk her teacher teaches her to smile. She vaguely remembers this one Addams Family scene where Wednesday tries to smile too.)

(Later, when she gets the end year report and the teacher's evaluation, the teacher says she's cold and needs to open up to people more. Maria snorts, and burns the damn paper. Not like Edward would want to read it anyways.)

Maria wakes up the next morning. She stares up blankly at the ceiling. She had expected a night full of nightmares and old demons resurfacing, but nothing. No dreams, no nightmares.

It's like she completely passed out and rebooted the next morning.

(Now, Maria's still got that habit. Her therapist called it suppressing memories, she called it a good night's sleep.)

Strange, Maria muses, as she gets up and checks her phone for emails or messages. Which, of course, there were hundreds, and Maria decided to check them all out later.

She had just been through a war against aliens, give her a break.

(Stark had once asked what she did for fun. Romanoff had teasingly replied "Get WASTED. Wake up early. Anticipate a productive day. Stay hydrated. Take your best shot. Exercise. Don't break the rules." It said a lot about Maria when she re-evaluated her life and realised that that did sum up her ethic.)

"Open curtains," Maria calls out, wincing at the scratchy quality of her voice after shouting commands for hours (and the crying, who could forget the complete and utter breakdown she had yesterday).

Maria climbs onto the ledge beside her windows (fake, of course, it was a screen used to project the surroundings, usually used for spying).

It's peaceful. Deserted. The Helicarrier was bound to land in about 7 hours from now, which was when Maria would need to be on the Commanding Deck.

Everyone was probably having a good lie in, which they did deserve, she supposed. Only insane people would force themselves to stay up after a war.

Or enhanced individuals, who knew what was their physical and mental limit? Human experimentation was ethically wrong, of course.

Although, some legal laws did run antithesis to ethical values.

Maria groans and slides off the ledge, heading to the small pantry area of her rooms. Perks of being a Deputy Director of an international espionage organisation. Free coffee, and larger private rooms.

As Maria nurses her cup of coffee, she brings out her laptop and begins to reply to emails and some admin work. New upgrades for the Helicarrier due, maintenance schedule, Stark's proposal to "get a closer look", duty schedules, drills and all that fun stuff.

She spent a good hour or two immersing herself in emails and light paperwork before she decides to get another cup of coffee.

Phil would have given her hell and dragged her back to bed, Maria muses, before abruptly realising the impossibility of the sentence.

(Another person that died, because of their unfortunate of meeting Maria. Because Maria was too incompetent to get agents to trail a senior, level 8 agent, which was standard protocol, come to think about it. Because because because.)

It's the first time Maria realises, _being liked by her is a curse._

Suddenly, the coffee doesn't seem as appealing as it was a few seconds ago.

Life went on. Her and STRIKE Team Delta did not exchange condolences. They were not the kind of people who did that. And besides, she was Deputy Director, Ice Queen, no one dared to even so much as talk to her for more than necessary.

Maria dealt with it. Strangled the part of her that cared for Phil and cut it away. In her line of work, there was no use for meaningless mourning. Phil wouldn't have wanted it anyways.

Talos and Soren, the leaders of the Skrulls, had decided to go on a 2 year voyage around space to find new Skrulls. Which meant Maria had more free time to fill up with completing more paperwork. Great, the things a senior level agent enjoyed and did in their spare time.

She babysat the Avengers occasionally. She also babysat the CIA once or twice. Met with a few important German intelligence individuals, attended a course and meeting with China's CICIR, helped out in a case with MI6 involving mutated ostrich-lion hybrids (okay, sounded questionable, but MI6 were paranoid of anything remotely alien-like ever since the 2012 New York invasion).

With the amount of work she had to do, she barely had time to breathe.

(Actually, Nick had demanded she take a one week break. Nick locked her in house arrest, cut her off from her shield account, threatened every other agent to not hand Maria their shield account even if "she's scary" or "going to send them to Antarctica for a year", and told her the world could get by one week without her doing work.)

(Maria had been restless and irritable the whole week, and the moment her week was up she was forcibly unlocking the door and storming Nick's office. Maria also did try to steal his pet Flerken, but was found out within a few hours. Goose did not appreciate being woken from his comfy spot in Maria's bathtub she heated up for the alien-cat.)

Maria begun to settle down when the Avengers suddenly developed maturity and stopped whining for her to help settle some bet on donuts and blueberries or something.

Naturally, she thought the world was going to hell.

(It did, a week later. Funny how her predictions always became ironic.)

"She needs a medic or she's going to bleed out," new guy says, looking genuinely concerned.

Maria had already compiled a file on him the moment she heard of him, only managing to find his code name but not real one, much to her displeasure. Ex-military, still worked out. Certified therapist, part of a scrapped government project, wingman died in a fatal accident. Still somehow had his life together. Maybe he had self-therapy sessions.

Okay, Maria concedes internally, glancing at Romanoff's wound. Perhaps some intervention was needed. Judging by the blood flow and the pallor of her face, and of course the movements of her agent, she could tell Romanoff was in mild amount of pain and was about one hour from bleeding to death.

Time to act.

Maria brings out her electric rod and charges it up. New guy flinches back. Good survival instincts then, nice to see someone who wouldn't do anything stupid.

Actually, come again, he had let two heroes on the run into his house and get recruited to fight against a huge totalitarian organisation with a huge amount of power in a span of max a few days.

Maria took back everything she said.

As quick as an asp, Maria brings down the other guard with the electric rod and a good kick to his head.

"Oh god, that thing was squeezing my brain!" Maria exclaims, tugging the stupid helmet off her head. Really, did HYDRA not invest in their security gear?

And now, on to the more pertinent things.

"Who's this guy?"

As Maria listens to their story, she shifts over to rip out some padding from the helmet and crouches beside Romanoff, pressing the padding over her wound to staunch the bleeding, careful not to push the bullet too deep into her.

"You know, you really need to stop getting shot in dire situations," Maria frowns as Romanoff huffs, then winces at the movement.

"Where'd you go?" Rogers asks.

"Not here, and definitely doing a better job of staying underground than an internationally feared spy," Maria teases.

"Your bedside ethic is terrible, Hill, this is why people say there's serial killers and Hannibal Lecter, and you're the agent version," Romanoff rebuts.

Good. Talking is good, she hasn't gone into shock yet, but was slipping into it.

"Hold on, let's get you three vagabonds out of here."

Rogers drills the holes as Maria's hands are still slippery with Romanoff's blood.

They don't talk as they move quickly to the base.

"GSW, she's lost at least a pint," Maria orders.

A med agent rushes over.

"Actually, hold that order, she'll want to see him first."

Maria feels more than sees Romanoff's glare. If looks could kill, she'd be deader then her own birth mother right now.

"About damn time," the man who caused half of all her troubles says dramatically, curtain opening.

"And about damn time for you to sit the hell down before you die a premature death," Maria grumbles. "Does no one ever listen to me for their own benefit here?"

"Explain," is all Romanoff says coldly.

Maria sighs.

"Are you coming?" Maria asks Romanoff. "Our ride is leaving in five minutes."

Romanoff blinks. "Yeah, I'm coming, but join me for a second?"

Maria rolls her eyes and in a swift move, leaps up onto the rooftop.

"I never thought my life would be this insane, not even with the KGB," Romanoff murmurs.

"Me neither, I always thought I'd just get through Marines, maybe get a degree in either law or medical and go along with it," Maria admits.

"What changed then?"

"Everything. I'm still glad I did it though. Taking the leap isn't always as terrifying in retrospect."

Romanoff smiles.

"No it isn't. Anyways, I'm hoping the new aliens will be nicer than Thor's brother and the Chitauri."

"The Skrulls are loads better, yes. I understand that you’re only hanging around for two weeks?"

"Hmm. The Avengers might accidentally blow up the world if I stay longer. Barton's hiding out in his nest now, I got Bishop to stay with him and Laura too. Rogers and Wilson are on a hunt for the Soldier. Would have liked to take sniping lessons from him, he's a pro."

"But you wouldn't trust him even with a machete and two loaded AK-47s?"

"I think he doesn't even trust himself. You know, you should follow up with Rogers. You can work your word voodoo thing with the Soldier, maybe he'll follow you around like a lost puppy just like Steve follows him."

"You're terrible at complimenting people, you know that?" Maria grins and nudges Romanoff.

Romanoff squawks in protest. "It's true! I'm telling you, you've got some weird magic thing with your words. How you managed to make an entire drug ring sob their eyes out within an hour without even threatening them is beyond me. And let's not even mention holding together a rogue, internationally renowned and feared assassin."

Maria smiles mysteriously.

"I didn't just get recruited because of my work in Special Ops and analytics, that's for sure."

Romanoff's eyes narrow. "I'm bribing Fury to spill."

"Oh, he won't because I know way too much about him thanks to the Skrulls and a certain alien-cat," Maria airily says.

"Hill!"

Disaster hits. Romanoff calls her, says the Avengers are a mess and need some semblance of leadership, but Romanoff's never been one to be out in the open, preferring to be in the shadows.

Fury needs her here. She needs to be here. They need to make more deals, forge more relations. Already, there are whispers. Of an insane one, looking for powerful artifacts. For glory, for balance. Some were foretold prophecies (unreliable), some were reports. No one could pin a specific story, but they all ran along the same lines.

So Talos and Soren go in their stride, Talos more for security reasons as Fury is still legally dead on Earth. Fury reassured them it was only for a few months, and they would keep in touch.

A few months turn into a year.

(Maria thinks this, when she looks back on this decision, was the major factor in the Avengers' disbandment)

Maria does her duties. She survives two kidnapping attempts thus far, which is pretty good considering her track record. And it's been two years. She's been in space, travelling from one planet to another for two years.

Maria picks up some alien instrument thing from the Gehaks. It looked a bit like a violin, if she were being honest, but the size and strings were the only similarities. Same technique though.

Apparently it was called Hieroah, invented in a period of darkness for the Gehaks where their land was rampaged by the Asgardian-Jotun war that stretched on for centuries, nearly a millennia. A reminder that even in the shadows, beauty could emerge.

As a thank you gift for helping them build a trade relation that would supply them with enough food and water to feed the population, they taught her to play.

The sound the Hieroah could produce was much more unearthly than any violin Earth could produce. It filled the air, reverberating and dissipating with a tinge of sorrow its bloody history and creation gave.

It was beautiful, and Maria's.

(Maria does not laugh when they gift Fury a new coat that is a vibrant pink, which was a sacred colour to the Gehaks, what are you talking about?)

This time, its Barton, Rogers, Stark and Romanoff who message her. All in a panic, for completely different reasons. Barton's family exposed, Rogers on the run and searching for a war hero who should be dead, but turned out to be a HYDRA agent. Stark signing his life and weapons away to the government. And Romanoff. Double agent to the last minute. She not only lost half her family (Rogers would never properly trust her again) and the other half when she made a different call (Stark would be hurt by her and remember it for the rest of his life, and because the Avengers were her family).

To Barton, Maria advised him to go underground with his family. To Rogers, Maria told him to continue searching, but try not to break any laws, and maintain his persona of a public figure. To Stark, Maria told him to not make any rash decisions, and stick with Pepper and Rhodey.

Romanoff was an entirely different matter.

She had conferred with Fury. Their agent, so much potential and passion, losing everything she built up because of a few wrong choices.

"Once again, we ask ourselves. What is she willing to do? What is she willing to give up to find herself again?" Maria muses.

Fury looks out of the spaceship they were on, currently travelling en route back to a Skrull base to refuel and meet up with Talos and Soren.

"Get Romanoff. Seems like we'll have much to discuss again."

Maria frowns.

(Factor in all possible scenarios, and how to deal with them. Logic, reasoning, ethics, law, politics, irrationality. Maria is a human calculator for these things. They haven't seen Romanoff in years, never really been in contact with her despite what she may think. Did she even notice the difference? How good was Soren?)

(Maria is a person that swears by logic, fascinated by things she can't understand. Romanoff was a mystery, now becoming so much clearer.)

Romanoff comes on board the ship, immediately scanning for threats, possible escape routes and cataloguing the beings around. Which is quite a bit, as there are Skrulls milling around on their break, and those working.

Maria watches dispassionately as a Skrull (Denah) introduces herself and shows Romanoff to her room. She doesn't miss the way Romanoff scans her and Fury, standing in the shadows, watching.

Romanoff doesn't give any outward reaction, but she can practically hear Romanoff calculating and evaluating her plans.

"We brief her once she's settled in," Fury orders more than suggests, and Maria nods.

"So, nice set up you've got here Fury, you and Hill have been busy?"

"Same could be said for you and the team that was supposed to be protecting the world, not getting involved in a spat and breaking up," Fury says, leaning forward.

Romanoff's eyes harden. "Steve and Tony went at each other like wildcats, the others followed. Clint only joined Steve because of Wanda, reminded him of me most likely. Tony's abjectly afraid of Wanda, reasonable after what she did to him. Steve expects Howard in Tony, and therein lies the problem. Tony has spent his entire life to not be Howard, while Steve projects all the time. Adding in the fiasco with HYDRA and Barnes, it was a perfect formulae for an explosion."

"I put you there not only because of your proficiency in field work, but also because I trusted you would make the right choices, Romanoff."

Romanoff's gaze sharpens.

"The blame isn't solely on you, but you knew how jumpy they were, and you decide to pull a fast one on Stark. In their eyes, its betrayal, in yours a necessary decision to keep them safe."

Romanoff snorts. "That's it, isn't it? They don't understand. They never have, not even Clint. I don't do many things without thinking through all possible scenarios and choosing the one with the outcome with the least collateral damage. They don't understand, and they refuse to. And I don't know what to do anymore," Romanoff chokes lightly on the end of the sentence, as if terrified to admit not knowing something.

(Not knowing meant losing control)

Fury stares at her inscrutably.

Maria sighs.

"Romanova, follow me," Maria says, pushing her chair back and opening the door.

Fury tilts his head and Maria twitches her fingers. _I'll talk to her_.

"Off you go then, Romanoff."

Romanoff follows her.

"You know, I don't go by that name anymore," Romanoff casually says.

"You're afraid of it, of what it means. I'm not, its just a name. You yourself are attaching negative stigmas to it," Maria simply replies.

"Harsh."

"It's a harsh world, Romanova. Until you stop acting like a lost puppy, I'll call you that."

"I'm not a lost puppy!" Romanoff exclaims, and Maria raises an eyebrow at the outburst.

"You don't understand, I don't know half of my past. I can't predict my future. I'm a ticking bomb, I don't know what to do," Romanoff growls, gesturing wildly with her hands.

Maria stops at a door and opens it, leading Romanoff in.

"Tell me then, since I don't understand. Enlighten me, let it out. Who am I going to tell anyways, my coffee mug?" Maria says.

Romanoff's face tightens and she looks away, but leans against the wall as Maria closes the door and hops onto a chair.

"I wouldn't know where to begin. I don't know who I am anymore. I thought, I kid myself to believe that I would be doing something good, joining the Avengers, that I was worth something. That I could be as good as the rest of them. In retrospect, I can pinpoint moments, or periods of time, where the buildup to this came."

"I feel like dried out glue. I've been trying to patch up the holes for years, pull them together, get them to open up about their lives and traumas, or at least see a therapist. To be a team, you know. And now, I guess I never really thought if they wanted it or not."

"You want a family," Maria softly says.

Romanoff smiles bleakly, shadows and old traumas dancing across her face like silvery cobwebs.

"I want myself back."

Romanoff's put through a few more psychological evaluations and therapy sessions before she's allowed to be back on duty. They'd sent a particularly talented Skrull called Jehov in her place on Earth. As Talos and Soren had to be on duty, more replacements were sent in lieu of Maria and Nick.

Romanoff goes into the Ops and surprisingly, the linguistics departments.

Romanoff admitted she always liked learning languages, but her talents were better put to use in the Operations department, hence Fury made her schedule possible for her to do both.

Not like Maria can complain, Romanoff's proficient in nearly 40 languages, some dead. She'll definitely easily pick up another few alien ones. All languages have similarities.

Maria herself is in Operations and Administration, with minor training in Legal and Level 8 training. It's not too different from SHIELD, if she were being honest. Clearance Levels, codes, departments, it all goes. Intelligence communities and organisations were all the same, what mattered was the people on the inside.

Currently, Talos, Soren and Nick have the highest clearance levels of 10. Level 1 meant technician or new recruit, 2 meant admin worker, 3 meant new field agent (receiving special training in Ops), 4 meant field agent (already went through training in Ops and passed), 5 meant field agents with special training (i.e. Barton, Romanoff, Rogers, although Ops training was still necessary), 6 meant regional officer (handlers in training, also needed a minor training in many other departments, all included in the handler training curriculum), 7 meant senior agent (in their own respective departments, required handler training), 8 meant senior handler agent (i.e. Coulson, and now Maria in the Skrulls' intelligence organisation), 9 meant special director (a board of Skrulls who Maria had not met) and 10 meant executive director (which meant Talos, Soren and Fury).

Maria's not planning to rise up to Level 9, or God forbid 10, unless something happens. The amount of paperwork would have been horrifying, and that's saying something as SHIELD's former Deputy Director, which in their old 8 clearance level system meant the second highest ranking besides Fury in Level 9 (Level 9 was for Deputy and Level 10 for Director, but the usual system named was the 8 Level system).

Here, with intergalatic relations, 10 times the number of wars, policies and diplomacy, plus recovery missions due to the war with the Kree that had ended a few years back with a tentative peace treaty, the workload was obviously much higher.

The departments all had their department heads (at least Level 7, preferrably Level 8). Analytics was Hiloh, Operations was Benni, Administration was her (the previous guy retired and they were looking for a replacement, Fury, the bastard, immediately dragged her in, ignoring the fact that Talos and Soren would have done the same eventually), Linguistics was Xerag, Research & Development (more commonly known as R&D) was Vlax, Legal was Terz, Forensics was Milj, Technology was Alioh, Medical was Sycra and Enforcement was Kazin.

Xerag himself was always gushing over Romanoff or the other prodigy in languages called Yiros, which was where she got all her weekly updates of Romanoff from. Seems like even when recovering form a huge blow, the woman could be competent. Which was exactly the type of agent Maria liked to see (Yes, she had high standards, and so what? The world wasn't going to develop with a bunch of slackers).

Despite what Maria told herself, she was curious about Romanoff and her ability to act like a chameleon, both physically and mentally. Firstly shown in her actions and the other Skrulls' impressions of her. Within three months, Romanoff had managed to establish herself as a dominatrix, competent, vaguely terrifying mysterious beauty. Which Maria would expect no less of from the deadly woman.

Certainly, Romanoff was proving to be every bit as interesting and a puzzle as she was nearly 10 years ago.

(Piecing her together, watching her fall apart. At the end of the day, the Black Widow would conquer.)

Maria had advised Romanoff to distance herself from the Avengers, and those associated with them.

Romanoff had beaten her ass in the gym with a wild ferocity and ghosts crawling under her skin, but a few days later Maria saw the official paperwork for Romanoff's name change back to Romanova.

Maria did not smile, where did you get that idea from?

Maria once challenged Terz (the legal department head guy) to a game of chess during a bar party.

It incited a night of partying and board games and gambling.

(Romanova and her had tag-teamed to split their winnings. Talos told her the two of them alone were already terrifying, but the two of them working together was even worse. Romanova had smiled mysteriously, Maria had smirked.)

(Romanova let Maria call her Natalia that night, amidst the laughing and drinks and checkmates and battleship winnings.)

Maria had once plied Fury with drinks. It was a few hours after his trial for disobeying orders of the WSC and not launching the nuke.

"What did you see in the Avengers that SHIELD could not be?" Maria had asked.

"Freedom to fight, to go against the law rightfully with less possible ramifications," Fury had answered shortly, brief even when drunk.

"What did you see in me then?" Maria had asked.

(Flickering, cold blue eyes. "Murderer". Blistered hands and feet and bloodied knuckles. A firm statue of emotionless eloquence, brutal speeches, surgical precision and knives for words.)

"Someone who could put themselves in other people's skin, and still live in her own way of life," Fury replied.

Maria thinks he's wrong. Maria's never been anyone but a killer and a manipulator.

(Being other people was not a skill normal people, worthy, good people, possessed.)

(It's why the Avengers and her worked well together. Killing was still killing, even in the name of justice.)

(Her own birthmother did not receive her justice.)

"Well, for the sake of your dignity, I won't tell you what I think about the Avengers and you," Maria had teased.

Fury poured another glass of vodka (Romanoff had gifted him a few bottles) and clinked it with Maria's.

"To lesbians and my dignity," Fury solemnly said.

Maria had smiled widely and laughed her heart out.

It's fine for a year. 2017, in Earth years, is where things begin to go downhill.

Confirmed attacks of an alien called the Mad Titan and his cult. His children, he called them.

Maria had once seen an aftermath of battle against the Black Order. It was a massacre, a mercy, they called it.

"This is exactly like a cult," Maria says, pursing her lips in the particular meeting with Fury, Talos, Soren, other department heads and Level 8 agents and above.

"We need all hands on board the deck to protect our people then," Kazin argues.

"Have you forgotten our agreement and partnership? It's not like all resources will be sent to protect Earth, only a mere fraction of what there is. First to scout, then to place necessary protections. It's not a going back to home sweet home thing," Maria replies deftly.

"I agree," Milj says. "Earth was under attack years ago. The Mad Titan will go back there again. There are still powerful warriors and the Mind stone on Earth, he will be there. Us Skrulls, I doubt he will try to annihilate us. But the humans, they stand in his way."

"We don't need to send in troops. That will catch the Mad Titan's attention. What we need is a simple way of infiltration to Earth," Hiloh interjects.

Everyone looks at Maria, and Maria glances at Fury.

"Agent Hill, Agent Romanova and I will head back to Earth on a scouting mission," Fury finally decides.

"Initiate Code 23-Y and Side-Project Besja," Soren commands, the network the Skrulls had set up beginning to relay the command.

"It takes about 21 hours to get to Earth from here, issue a space pod. Have the Life-Model Decoys ready, ETA Earth timing May 21, 2018, 6 hours 23 minutes, enough time to set up," Benni inputs.

"Hill, get Romanova. We've got a mission to plan, and I'd like her opinion."

They're in a car when things go horribly wrong.

The spy satellites Maria had linked her phone to begun to send alerts.

"What is it?"

"Multiple bogeys over Wakanda."

"Same energy signatures as New York?" Natalia interjects, leaning towards Maria's phone from the back seat.

Uncivilized swine.

"Ten times bigger."

"Tell Klein, we'll meet him at-"

"Nick, Nick!"

Fucking drunk drivers, if this idiot delayed their journey to the Avengers' Compound-

"They're okay?" Fury asks as Maria and Natalia duck to see through the windows.

"There's no one here," Maria replies, brows furrowing.

Around them, people begin screaming.

The three of them have the same epiphany at once, and they look at each other-

"Call Control, Code Red," Fury barks.

Suddenly, Maria's hands feel tingly.

Maria looks up at Nick and Natalia's widening eyes in horror.

"Nick? Nata-"

Maria feels her eyes close, and she dissolves into nothing-ness.

When Maria awakens, she feels like she's awakening from a decades long sleep.

Oh, she did not just fall asleep on duty-

Maria's knees give out, and she hits the tar of a road.

A road?

Maria opens her eyes and blinks frantically.

Her eyes feel dry and sandy.

Maria does a mental scan of her body. Sore, but overall fine.

Maria checks her surroundings next, ducking behind a trash can overflowing with trash.

The last thing she remembers is-

("Call control" "Nick? Nata-")

"Fury? Romanova?" Maria calls out to the empty streets of New York.

"Hey hey, are you the law enforcement lady police around here?" A man says, suddenly appearing out of nowhere and coming up to her. "'Cause I swear to God that my car was there, and I don't know, I don't remember shit and the place looks different and-"

Code Red.

"Maria?"

Maria's head turns, and she sees a familiar red head.

She never thought she'd be so pleased to see Romanova.

"Natalia, where is everyone?"

The man is still babbling, suddenly lunging out and grabbing hold of her arm.

"And then there were people disappearing you know, like they were going invisible, except it happened to me and I-"

"Sir, calm down. We also are unsure of what happened," Romanova, bless her, strides up to them, gently prying Maria's arm from his death grip.

"Natalia, call Stark."

"-fucker!"

The man screams and scuttles back from the noise.

The familiar trench coat and boots appear before the rest of Fury does.

"Nick?" Maria and Romanova call out.

"Agents. Looks like we’re back in the game. Now, I paged an old friend of mine, Carol Danvers, remember? I think they did it. They killed the Mad Titan, and we're back."

Maria blinks once.

"We have to head back to HQ," Maria decides.

"No," Natalia says slowly. "We have to check in with the Avengers. Our Life-Model Decoys might still be in action, who knows what happened, or what date it is?"

"According to that paper, March 20, 2023," Maria points out.

"5 years, they took 5 years to bring everyone back," Fury mutters.

"I'm sorry but, are you three the secret police?" The man asks.

"I think I found the address. Let's go," Maria says, handing Fury her phone that thankfully, still worked.

"I'll report back to Benni, he'll inform the others if he's already back," Natalia offers.

"You, Sir, stay here and don't move. Go check on your family or whatever, and to whoever asks you, we were never here, understand?" Maria demands.

"Yes Lady, yes ma'am!" The man squeaks.

"This car works," Natalia says patting the roof of a car that looked a little on the uncared for side.

Maria shrugs and gets in.

The admin work is going to be a bitch.

"Stay in the shadows first," Fury orders.

Maria and Natalia look at each other before melting back to the background trees.

It's a macabre scene, every bit as devastating and gory as any battle with the Mad Titan. After an hour or so of travel, they had made it to the New Avengers Facility, where the GPS locaters on the Avengers' phones were.

The entire building was collapsed and burning, the field was burning with thousands of dead bodies littering the area.

Maria bites down on her tongue to stifle a gasp, Natalia tensing up beside her.

"Holy shit is that Director Fury?" Someone yells.

"Fury, good to see you again," a glowing woman says, landing down from the sky in front of him, offering her hand to shake.

"Danvers, seems like I'm a little late," Fury replies, shaking her hand.

"I'll call the rest of the team out. They're tending to the injured, healing them, some are freshening up. Standard procedure. We haven't started clean up yet, but I'm helping clear debris."

"Where are they?"

"Set up tents around the area. Come."

Fury follows.

Maria glances at Natalia.

Silently, they confer.

'Follow him, pull up your hood,' Maria signs, and Natalia nods.

Maria quickly moves through the forest, moving slowly in case of any traps. She's glad that there are none. Natalia chooses to instead duck through piles of debris, weaving through the smoking craters and occasionally dodging back into the forest.

Maria very nearly does a double take as she sees the Avengers.

Natalia too, softly swears.

They stay crouched behind a bush and the less dense foliage of trees near the clearing.

"Director Fury, good to see you again," Steve Rogers says.

The Captain looked worse for wear, dark circles under his eyes and a tired smile.

"Good to see you too, Rogers. Where are the others? Fill me in on what's happened."

"Barton's gone back to find his family. They got dusted in the Snap. Oh sorry, the Snap's what we call the cause of the disappearing for 5 years thing."

"Is that Banner?" Natalia furiously whispers, pointing at the figure that would have been Hulk, if not for the ripped sweater, glasses, and typically Bruce-like smile.

"The world has gone to the dogs, is that Thor?" Maria replies instead, pointing at the figure tossing Mjolnir back and forth, with a beer belly and a few more cans of beers and a sandwich.

"Hmm. Romanoff and Stark?" Fury asks, and Rogers stiffens.

"Tony made the final sacrifice and snapped to kill Thanos and his army. The energy surge was too much for him to handle. Natasha, well, she died to get the Soul Stone, Clint's, Clint's still a little messed up about it. Look, a lot of things happened, Tony invented time travel, Thanos just died, more aliens came, apparently Earth has always had sorcerers-"

"My Life-Model Decoy died," Natalia whispers frantically to Maria. "Clint would have freaked, and his family-"

"You do not leave until Fury tells you to reveal yourself, do you understand Agent?" Maria hissed, grabbing her arm.

"But Clint-"

"I don't doubt Fury will give you time to reconnect with them, but only if he gives the order to reveal ourselves. Now, stop jostling and talking, we’re going to be found out."

Natalia glares mutinously, but shuts up.

"Think you can handle one more surprise?" Fury asks.

"What-"

"Agents."

Maria gives Natalia a knowing smirk and she rolls her eyes as they get up and head towards the tents.

"Miss me?" Natalia says.

Maria nearly sighs as Rogers stonily turns back to Fury.

"Yeah I know I know, got a lot of explaining to do. Romanova, Hill, do the honours."

Natalia's fingers dig into Maria's arms as Natalia takes in the haunted gazes of the Avengers, and Maria lets her.

"Alright, you're all going to need to sit down for this one."

Natalia explains. She tells them of her decision, she tells them of how space is, how her years have been.

"I died, and I came back. And everything's different now, I guess. You've got a Natasha who died, and I can respect it if you don't want to talk to me anymore. Besides, I'm not really Natasha Romanoff, I've never really been anyone but Natalia, and I suppose I'm done running from my past," Natalia offers a small smirk that seemed strained, even to Maria.

Natalia leans slightly into Maria, as if resigned to fate and waiting for some condemnation.

"I won't lie, I'm going to need some time processing this and separating the fake you and real you," Hulk-Banner speaks up slowly.

"I asked for a miracle, to get you back, and here you are, right here. It makes me wonder," Thor trails off, leaning back and staring up at the sky, blinking back tears.

"I for one have no idea if I should punch you or Fury, but I'm glad you're back, truly," Rogers gives a wry grin, and shakes his head in somewhat shocked disbelief.

"Believe it or not, Maria was the one who suggested it," Natalia replies, looking less unsure of herself.

"Hill?" They all ask, turning to look at her.

"We were best equipped to bring her back to her full potential, and the fact that we are not emotionally constipated idiots who constantly tear apart each other and build each other back up with duct tape instead of going to therapy really does help," Maria says drily.

"I think that's the first time I've been chastised thoroughly in 5 seconds, and that even includes Peggy's scoldings," Rogers sheepishly says.

Maria's eyes narrow slightly. So, Rogers still hasn't gotten over his "living in the past thing"-

Maria scowls as Natalia elbows her in the ribs.

"What the hell Romanova?"

"I know that look. It's the I'm going to psychoanalyse you and act like a human calculator to figure you out and fix you look."

Maria looks at Nick for support.

"She's right, you know. You also had it when you were high off your ass with a loose tongue at a barely legal age on a crappy hospital bed," Fury, the bastard, says.

"In my defense, I had a bullet graze my heart and watched my teammates get blown up or bleed out, was yes, high from morphine, which the incompetent doctors accidentally overdosed me on by the way, and let's not even talk about your terrible bedside manner Nick. And yes, I am capable of accepting such events and freely sharing them because I actually go to therapy and solve my issues. We're far from alone in this universe."

There's sarcastic clapping from Natalia.

"Director Dad," Natalia says, ignoring the choked sounds from the others besides Maria and said Director Dad (who just levelled an unimpressed glare at her), "Can we let Maria run for President elect? It would be funny, seeing Maria try to restrain herself from poking out a politician's eye with a pen. Actually wait, didn't you do that in Madrid?"

"Charming as this is," Maria grits out, glaring at Natalia who absolutely stared back at her with no remorse, "We have to reconvene with a few partners. I'll leave Natalia with the rest of you to reconnect. Inform us when Stark's funeral is. Natalia, you know how to contact us about your decision. Director?" Maria questions, glancing at him.

"Make sure Barton doesn't seriously maim or kill Romanova when he finds out. Romanova, congratulations on faking your death again. Hill."

Maria gives a short nod and wipes her face of emotions.

"We'll see you the next time we have a cataclysmic disaster, and if it happens, do not hesitate to call."

Maria was actually quite sure Natalia would be staying with the Avengers. She had heard of her reunion with Barton and Maximoff, it had apparently involved some kind of fight with a fork, a couple of kitchen knives and a katana. Maximoff had drily reported that one of the Bartons yelled "do a flip" (to reference a meme) and another yelled "do a reenactment of the Civil War Airport scene" (to reference _another_ meme, this time Avengers themed), which had then caused Barton to laugh/ugly cry, Natalia collapsing on him from where she was hanging upside down on the side railing of the second floor.

When Natalia appeared on the day the pod the Skrulls sent arrived, she was decked out in her usual suit and tens of weapons attached to her (nevermind she herself was the only weapon she needed).

"Got room for one more?"

Maria smiles a bit.

Natalia Romanova is still every bit the complex puzzle she was when she was a shell of a human being.

"I'm going to enjoy having more time to figure you out," Maria promises.

Natalia chuckles, the light in those green eyes dancing laughingly. "Just don't fix me, I don't think the world could handle that."

* * *

Maria Hill is ice cold, competent, eye candy to some, a control freak, and a bitch, but it helps her do her job, and she wouldn't have it any other way.

With Natalia so free and comfortable in her skin after years of hiding away, Maria thinks she's solved the mystery of herself, but Romanova? She was an enigma, and she could wait, Maria supposed.

Maria thinks Natalia's probably telepathic as Natalia turns and gives her a genuine smile.

Whatever it takes, indeed.

Perhaps the mystery of Natalia Romanova would never be solved by Maria, but Maria's tried and true techniques have helped her regain her identity.

* * *

Things in **retrospect** always seem clear. **Observation** is not sight. **Introspection** is the clearest transparent window to oneself.

The **past** has a way of coming back. The **present** is a gift. The **future** is in your hands.


End file.
